


Unforeseen Friendship

by Zaniida



Series: Five Moments of Loki [2]
Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: (somewhat damaged), Consent Issues (discussed), Despair, Details from the Norse Mythos, FMI, FMNI, Five Moments of Intimacy, Gen, Loki (Marvel) Needs a Hug, Loki Doesn't Want Your Hugs, Loki Doesn't Want Your Pity, Loki Survived, Neck trauma, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Post-Sakaar, Psychological Trauma, Statesman (Marvel), Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, maybe some healthy ones too, post-thanos, suffocation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-16
Updated: 2019-07-14
Packaged: 2020-03-06 08:35:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18847450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zaniida/pseuds/Zaniida
Summary: He'd grown up scared of frost giants, but that was nothing compared to the terror he'd felt on Sakaar upon seeing the Hulk.How odd, then, to find him turning to the giant green monster for friendship.  For comfort.  How odd totrusthim.





	1. Suffocating

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tenaya](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tenaya/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Idavollr](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15862980) by [Marzipanda](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marzipanda/pseuds/Marzipanda). 



> **Content Warning in End Note** , for sensitive readers who weren't put off by my tags or who want more information on the specifics. If I've missed anything that ought to be tagged, please let me know.
> 
> * * *
> 
> Found the fic I was thinking of! **Idavollr** by Marzipanda (ah, weird names). Post-Thanos, Loki is living in Stark Tower as a sorta prisoner to the Avengers. When he realizes that Bruce has been back on Midgard for a whole year without letting the Hulk out, Loki finds this unconscionable, and compares the Hulk to a child just starting to grow, who needs interaction and deserves freedom.
>
>> "When was the last time Hulk was out, Bruce?"  
> Bruce took too long, so Tony answered for him. "Not since he's been back."  
> "It's not my fault, okay? He wouldn't come out, I needed to fight--"  
> "Ah. He wouldn't do what you wanted, so you locked him away for a year."  
> "What is going on?"  
> "The Hulk is intelligent. He is not an alter ego, but a different person entirely. He talks now. He can be reasoned with."  
> "...Why do you care?"  
> "Because he has a right to exist." Loki swallowed, seeming to consider something for a moment, before lifting his chin defiantly. "Because Hulk is my friend, too."
> 
> Loki even submits to the Hulk's crushing hugs, and prevents the Hulk from accidentally harming the humans (since the Hulk is used to the hardier Asgardians).
> 
> That depiction so set my mental concept of Bruce vs. Hulk that I was actually disappointed to see the canonical future for them.
> 
> * * *
> 
> This is the first Loki fic where I'm using my [Five Moments of (Nonsexual) Intimacy](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1031027) fic form. It's a canon-independent fic form, but so far I've basically used it for _Person of Interest_ fics; however, I really do hope to see more authors pick it up and run with it. Basically, you describe some aspect of each type of nonsexual intimacy: Physical Intimacy, Emotional Intimacy, Experiential Intimacy, Secret Sharing, and Vulnerability/Acceptance. All of these areas involve a certain level of Trust.
> 
>  **Experiential Intimacy** includes letting your hair down together (e.g. sharing a beer, watching a movie, gardening together), but can also be two characters going through a severe circumstance that no other characters will be capable of really understanding. Think of Frodo and Samwise, clawing their way through the depths of Mordor -- can anyone else ever be as close as those two, really grasp what they've been through?
> 
>  **Secret Sharing** is letting someone know a fact about yourself that you wouldn't tell the world at large. Something hidden, something private, but shared between you. This could be as simple as a preference for a certain type of food or music, or it could be some aspect of you that society can't accept, or a skeleton in your closet or a threat hanging over your head.
> 
>  **Emotional Intimacy** can be a shared emotional experience (shared rage, fear, joy, regret), or one character comforting another who's going through strong emotions.
> 
>  **Physical Intimacy** includes any level of physical touch or closeness that isn't sexual. This can be grooming (help with clothes or hair, bathing), first aid, carrying someone or helping them climb or crawl, etc. It can also be sensual intimacy: massage, for example, or certain types of BDSM, so long as the focus is off the sexual component.
> 
>  **Vulnerability/Acceptance** can overlap with Physical Intimacy, but it's primarily about putting yourself in the other's hands and trusting them not to take advantage of it. Sleeping while the other keeps watch, or letting yourself be drugged or enchanted, off your guard. Letting someone assist you with medical care or bathing/toiletry. Admitting to a disability or weakness that the other might use against you. This category also includes sharing a personal or creative endeavor: If I show you my art or videos, I've opened myself up to be devastated if you critique it too harshly or, possibly worse, are indifferent to something that means that much to me.
> 
> An FMI (or FMNI) fic includes some aspect from each area, whether carefully delineated or woven all together. Can be within a sexual relationship (where the fic itself ignores the sex) or within one or more Platonic relationships. The point is to remind people that sex is hardly the only form of intimacy.
> 
> This fic explores FMI between Hulk & Loki; the first chapter is Emotional Intimacy, an odd form of comfort because Loki will not accept other forms of comfort right now.

Loki wakes without breath, that phantom grip around his throat again; he tears off the covers and vaults to his feet, trying to force his aching lungs to expand. There’s nothing physically wrong with his lungs, and his trachea is as repaired as it’s ever going to get; this is _mental_ , he tells himself sternly, it’s _mental_ , so it’s _controllable_ , and there’s _more than enough air_ in this room and nothing preventing him from breathing it.

It doesn’t help. Rarely does.

Panting, he flees into the cool air of the corridor and briefly leans against the wall, chest heaving, tight, constricted. Doesn’t give himself the time to recover before he’s staggering away down the hall, cloaking himself in invisibility. With any luck, his distress didn’t wake Thor, but there aren’t nearly enough quarters to house all the refugees, and so the corridors themselves have become places to bed down. He hates the thought of anyone waking up, making a fuss over his momentary (recurring) weakness—let alone asking what _caused_ it.

It’s bad enough when he dreams of Thanos; tonight’s specter is an old dream, an old fear given new and vivid life by that nearly fatal encounter. And in the dream, it’s not the Titan who chokes the life out of him, but _Thor_.

 

 _All around them, the ashen faces of the dead: Odin, and their mother, and Sif and the warriors and Jane and everyone Thor’s ever loved. In the dream, there’s no telling how they died, but Loki’s in range and Thor is in no mood to seek out other answers_.

 _Backing up, Loki babbles desperately, a futile attempt to buy time, to explain—but Thor swings Mjolnir and sends him flying into a stone wall that knocks the breath from him. He falls to the ground, gasping and weak, and then Thor is upon him, a quick kick breaking ribs and rolling him over, helpless against his brother’s fury. He can’t even struggle when Thor’s unforgiving grip finds his throat_.

 

Trying to push back the images, Loki rubs his neck, knowing there’s no hand there but his own. The long-familiar nightmare has never been so vivid—because until a few weeks ago, Loki hadn’t known what it’s like to be strangled. He’s known, too often, the same unreasoning terror, and the loss of breath was obvious, but not that sudden _crunch_ as his trachea collapses.

Norns, he can’t **_breathe_**.

 

Getting to the cargo bay takes forever, and the whole way feels like he’s drowning, but at last the hatch opens and he’s there, the most spacious room on the ship. At the far end, quietly snoring, lies its sole occupant, a giant green mass of flesh, safely asleep.

Loki sets a quick ward against intrusion and sinks down against a shipping container, letting the tears come—silent, as always—in the one place he feels safe enough to let them out, free from the intrusive concern of others. Because, if the Hulk rouses, if he realizes why Loki’s down here… well, his reaction isn’t exactly predictable, but the one thing Loki’s never seen from him is _pity_. The Hulk has never tried to comfort him, the way the others do, as if Loki shouldn’t be allowed to feel this way, as if his feelings need to stop existing because they’re hurting _someone else_.

Maybe he’ll be puzzled, or stomp about like a toddler, or make faces at him while Loki’s lips twitch until he finally allows himself a smile. (No laughter, not anymore. Never again.) One time, when Loki was (admittedly) getting a bit too out of control, the Hulk had snatched him up and bundled him in a blanket and used him as a squirmy, indignant pillow, until finally Loki gave in and lay there passively, the pressure an unexpected comfort that seemed to squeeze out all his emotions like water until there was nothing left but a calm emptiness.

More than likely, the Hulk is just going to laugh: _Loki scared! Bad dream!_ And after all the taunts and insults that ate away at Loki throughout his life on Asgard, how odd to think that he’s come to welcome a little mockery, an easy distraction to banish the shades of the night. Still more odd that the Hulk’s bedside has become Loki’s place of refuge.

Tonight, though, the brute doesn’t stir. But as Loki focuses on that massive chest expanding and contracting, he’s able to pull himself into the calm, steady rhythm and, slowly, _slowly_ , get his own lungs to play along.

 _Inhale_.

 _Exhale_.

 _Inhale_.

 _Exhale_.

 _Inhale_.

 _Exhale_.

 _Inhale_ …

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Content Warning:** Y'know that horrific moment in _Infinity War_ 's opener where Marvel went out of its way to assure us that our beloved Loki was, in fact and with no quibbling, actually and permanently _dead_ -dead? (Like, _what is a death that gruesome doing in a Marvel film_ kinda thing?)
> 
> Well, in this fic, Loki survived it (possibly because Thanos meant him to, though I don't think this fic will touch on Thanos at all), but it's taken a toll on his body, mind, and magic. And one canon detail from that moment gets mentioned (a certain act, and the sound that goes with it), which is pretty horrific, I think. On top of that, while Loki isn't actually mute, I'd consider him disabled because his voice does not work right anymore, and may never again.
> 
> This first chapter deals with nightmares and a panic attack.
> 
> The Dubious Consent part comes a couple chapters in, and is more the characters discussing something that happened offscreen, that one character considers A Big Deal but the other two (who were the actual participants) consider No Big Deal. Cultural differences and comparative traumas and such.


	2. Just Hit Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He’d been surprised to find that the Hulk has learned how to adjust to the limitations of his sparring partner. Of course, their sessions still leave Loki nearly as black and blue as the Hulk is green: “Limitations,” in Hulk’s mind, is less along the lines of what’s comfortable, and more along the lines of what’s _damaging_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My beta reader and backup beta reader (friend I strongarm into helping me) have both abandoned me, the finks. Almost as if "family" and "school" and "work" were higher priorities than proofreading my fics. _Honestly_.
> 
> I don't need any help with the mechanics of English; I'm actually quite good at that. But it's useful to have a second pair of eyes to help me spot oddities, avoid continuity errors or contradictions within a fic, do some basic research (e.g. _has X ever happened in the source material? how many days was the character at site Y? has character J ever met character K in canon? first aid procedures for dealing with injury Q?_ ), help me with characterization and voice, point out when a piece of info is not clearly presented to the reader (I'm the author, I know where all the details are, but that doesn't always come across well in the text), and with brainstorming and morale. So I thoroughly value my beta reader's contribution to my efforts, and that second pair of eyes almost always drives me to write material that is better than if I had done it all on my own.
> 
> But I am not exactly patient right now; I want to get these pieces posted! So bear in mind that if my beta reader points things out later on, I might come by and tinker with this piece a bit. We'll see.

Breath, these days, is precious to him. And he loses it too often—though, infuriatingly, not for any _physical_ cause. All it takes is something brushing his neck, or even a slight movement in that direction, and he goes into a panic, even when it’s Thor and he _knows_ that it’s Thor and he knows that Thor means to be comforting. Unthinkingly comforting. They’ve just found their way back to being brothers, to the relationship they should have maintained all along, and he trusts Thor with more than his life, but… that old supportive gesture that he’s treasured since childhood is tangled up with flashbacks that are still too fresh, too horrifying to cope with.

There’s only one person who doesn’t trigger that same unreasoning panic, who can pat him on the shoulder or even grab the back of his neck without setting him off. And it’s the only being he’s feared more than Hela or Thanos—it’s the beast who once slammed him into the ground so hard that he couldn’t move for nearly an hour, unable to think past the agony.

The Hulk’s clumsy affection no longer surprises Loki, and somehow his brain has gotten used to that not-quite-gentle-enough slap on his shoulder or neck after a good sparring session. It hurts, but it’s nothing he can’t handle, and he knows that the Hulk doesn’t actually mean to cause him pain. He _knows_ that, bone-deep; the Hulk could rip off his arms without even trying, and so the big green beast is no greater danger to his neck than to any other part of his anatomy. Yet (unlike Thor) the Hulk has never actually _harmed_ him, deliberately or not. Not since their first meeting, at least.

Not even when Loki sought it out.

After the encounter with Thanos—once he’d basically recovered, and their best remaining healer had declared that nothing more could be done for him, leaving Loki to adjust to his new limitations—Loki had taken up sparring with the Hulk almost hoping that the beast would take it too far, end his misery with a quick blow to the head, undoing whatever quirk of luck or biology has kept him alive thus far. He’d been surprised to find that the Hulk has learned how to adjust to the limitations of his sparring partner. Of course, their sessions still leave Loki nearly as black and blue as the Hulk is green: “Limitations,” in Hulk’s mind, is less along the lines of what’s comfortable, and more along the lines of what’s _damaging_.

Thor’s afraid to come at him with even a fraction of his strength, and won’t keep going once Loki’s starting to flag, let alone if he shows any visible damage. It’s infuriating, one more reminder that Loki is and will always be the weaker brother. Even the Valkyrie has started mollycoddling him, and his most needling insults can’t goad her into treating him like she used to. But the Hulk won’t hold back (too noticeably), and keeps it up until it’s Loki, panting and on the verge of passing out, who calls it quits.

So they’ve become sparring partners, regularly, all by themselves in the cargo hold, because the Hulk is the one person who doesn’t consider Loki to be a fragile body _first_ and a mind and will _second_. And before Loki leaves, he hides the damage behind his usual glamour, so he doesn’t have to deal with the questions, or even the _looks_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter was _Emotional Intimacy (Comfort)_ ; this chapter is _Physical Intimacy_. Note that in addition to showcasing a way in which Loki and the Hulk are becoming intimate friends, this fic also shows the ways in which Loki is prevented from intimacy with others, or else chooses not to allow that type of intimacy.
> 
> Still to come: Secret Sharing, Experiential Intimacy, and Vulnerability/Acceptance. Probably in that order, given the rough draft I've got together so far.
> 
>  **News!** I am sick. It is annoying. It is sapping my energy and making me basically stay in bed most of the day, reading fics when my eyes are happy being open (which isn't always). Up Side: Have read a lot of Loki fics this week ^_^ Down Side: Most everything else; I shall spare you the details. (At the least, my symptoms aren't outright painful, for the most part. But neither are they pleasant, especially having lungs that sound like Rice Krispies (which gets worse when I lie down).)
> 
> So, productivity lower than normal, but I'm still hoping to get a short POI fic out before the end of the month here, and I'm working on multiple Loki fics as well as the next chapter of _Mirror_.
> 
> As far as my [Journey thru the MCU](https://www.pillowfort.social/posts/677173), I just got done watching _Captain America_. Next up: Alcoholic Regret Man! (My nephew's like "Why not just watch _The Winter Soldier_?" and I'm like "But you need to understand _Iron Man_ before _The Winter Soldier_ can have the right impact... I think. Or maybe that's _Civil War_?" Again, I've gotten bits and pieces of these films and their interconnectedness through Popcultural Osmosis and reading fics and various articles and wikis, but I'm trying to walk my mom (and myself) through the MCU in some semblance of useful order.)
> 
> While I'm at it, in case I forget to announce this in a timely manner: **Tiny Box Tim Day is June 28th!** It's a holiday for helping others, it's on Markiplier's birthday, and I hope you'll find some way to contribute to whichever sort of charity most speaks to your heart.


	3. Confessions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Thanos had promised him a fate worse than death, worse than merely pain_.
> 
> _A thousand years of effortless grace—gone. His magic warped and muted. And each syllable that grates across his ruined vocal cords reminds him:_
> 
>  _He'll never be the Silvertongue again_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, after batting my head against this chapter for far too long, it's finally taken shape, and is ready to go live! My most gracious thanks to MulaSaWala for helping me out with the beta reading this time.
> 
> I might come back and make a longer note here, but at the moment I'm just gonna punch _Publish_ and move on with my day. If you care about news about what's going on with my writing (and other things in my life), maybe check back on this a day later and see if I've fixed this note up. Cheers!
> 
> Loki describes a lot of disturbing things that've happened over the centuries. More specific details in End Note, for those who need them.

_“Scary guy not mean to kill you?”_

_“No,” Loki murmurs, shaking his head very slightly. “Life like this is my punishment.”_

 

Waking up alive, surrounded by corpses and barely able to move, hadn’t really surprised him; Thanos had promised him a fate worse than death, worse than merely _pain_.

No, this was the price of failure, one drilled into his head as he’d been shredded and reshaped to the Mad Titan’s will. Ever since the attack on Midgard, he’d been running from it, and his first chilling glimpse of the warship had reminded him that he could only run so far: Fate had finally caught up with him.

* * *

The _first_ layer was certainly pain—crippling in its intensity, overwhelming beyond any defense he could hope to muster. Only once the healers had reduced it to a manageable level had Loki been able to start adjusting to the rest of the Titan’s gift.

A thousand years of effortless grace—gone. He can still walk, run, leap, fight, but he can’t fluidly switch momentum, has to stay aware of each motion of his body, compensate far more than he used to… and if he turns his neck too far, the sudden waves of agony are incapacitating. He’s had to reshape his collar to help support his neck, but also to warn him when he’s getting close to his limits.

And, in part _because of_ his physical limitations, his magic is now warped and muted; some of his more complicated spells are gone for good, others simply not worth the pain of trying to weave them.

Even that much, he could tolerate. He’s more than his magic, after all.

But each syllable that grates across his ruined vocal cords reminds him that he’ll never be the Silvertongue again.

 

Talking _hurts_. Not enough to keep Loki silent; there’s no amount of pain that has ever silenced _his_ tongue. But he rations his words.

Mostly, he spends them with the Hulk. The Hulk likes it because Loki doesn’t interrupt him much, or try to guess at what he means to say—he just lets him say it, even if it takes a while. And Loki, well… he doesn’t feel up to _trying_ with anyone else. Giving them one more thing to pity him for.

But the Hulk doesn’t pity him. And it’s surprising, just how much Loki values these little exchanges. How much he _needs_ them. Needs someone to _listen_ , without judgment, without pushing him to give more than he can, right now.

 

It’s the only time that Loki ever discusses his more disturbing dreams.

Thor dead, or dying, in all the ways he hasn’t managed to die so far; those always feel so real, and Loki always, _always_ knows that it’s his fault (how could it not be?).

Or sometimes Thor’s in agony, unable to die, begging Loki to make it end, to show him that much mercy… and he can never pull himself free from the dream until he accepts the burden, and slays his brother, sobbing out a plea for forgiveness as Thor gasps his final breath.

Nightmares are nothing new for the changeling prince; even before learning his true nature, he’d been plagued with them, from childhood onward. But, of late, they’ve gotten worse: memories of old horrors twisted around more recent trauma. Wounds that ought to be well healed, after so many centuries, combined with the kind of wounds that might never heal at all, and all of them playing loud and vivid in his mind, whenever he shuts his eyes.

Now that he and Thor are sharing the same bed again… well, Loki’s no longer small enough to wake screaming, or even sob quietly into his pillow, but it would be hard to miss how troubled his sleep is. And yet they don’t speak of it: The subject is taboo, and Loki as closed off as ever. He doesn’t need Thor’s reassurances: _Father hasn’t really been dragged off by frost giants, Mother hasn’t really drowned in her own tears, Thor hasn’t really lost control of his axe until it chopped him into little pieces._

The reality is worse than any nightmare.

 

_“Why not tell bad dreams to Thor?”_

_“He’s king now, has bigger worries. Besides, it’s… childish.”_

 

He hasn’t run to Thor with his nightmares since a servant’s scorn had severed that tender bond between them. Given all they’ve suffered in just the past few years, it seems ludicrous to let dreams bother him this much.

He learned to bottle them up, the figments and the memories both. He’s done it for so long that the thought of sharing them—of anyone _knowing_ —is nearly as horrifying as the nightmares themselves.

But it seems different, with the Hulk.

 

* * *

 

And then, one sleepless night, he ends up comparing his damaged voice to the time he got his lips sewn shut.

And he could have left it at that; the Hulk didn’t press him for details. The conversation could have shifted in any number of directions… but the Hulk, unlike Bruce, tended to take Loki at his word, and the awareness gnawed at Loki until he found himself pushing through the pain of his overtaxed throat to go over an event that had been all but forgotten. Every detail from the prank that had started it all to the moment when the dwarves, with the full approval of the court, got to hold him down and drive a silver needle through his lips, again and again until he thought he would choke on the blood.

 

_“All for stupid bet?”_

_Loki sighs and raises sheepish eyebrows. “Not my smartest move.”_

_The Hulk laughs, and pats him on the shoulder hard enough to make him wince. “You never make bets with dwarves again, right?”_

 

That first admission cracks the dam. Night by sleepless night, the memories he shares with no one else start bubbling up and pouring forth.

It’s difficult, sometimes, to sort out memories from dreams, and to distinguish which memories are even accurate. His fall from the Bifrost, for example: Did he let go, as Thor recalls it, or did Thor drop him, as Loki so vividly remembers? And if Thor’s claim is true— _I would never abandon you that way_ —then why, in the same breath as seeking his help, did Thor disown him and threaten his life?

( _Loki wants to believe that he’s misremembered that as well, but it came after the Chitauri… he thinks. Perhaps a year’s isolation has had a similar effect on his mind._ )

And why leave him writhing in pain on Sakaar, prey to any who happened to find him? ( _That one’s far too recent for him to mistake._ )

Still, he _does_ want to believe that Thor’s account is correct, and so he’s claimed it as a truth, no matter how it clashes with the bitter images in his head.

It’s hardly the only memory corrupted by his time with the Chitauri.

 

_“Hulk would just punch snake.”_

_That gets a grin and the barest snort from Loki, the closest he comes to a laugh these days. He pauses to consider his wording, condense it down. “Tied to rock. I couldn’t move. Just… acid in my eyes, for months.”_

 

As he recalls it, that happened long before Thor’s coronation, but it might well be one of the tortures the Chitauri put him through, recontextualized by his brain as he fought to survive. Telling the Hulk these stories helps him sort through the details, solidifying his confidence in the parts that seem accurate and picking up on the pieces that don’t fit.

Talking hurts, but the physical pain distracts him just enough to let him deal with other, deeper pains. He’s slowly draining away the poison that has built up over the years, the torrential emotions that crash about within his mind, and the twofold agony of speaking the words aloud is somehow cleansing.

Almost at random, he shares bits of his life, things he’s never even told Thor.

 

 _If he killed me, he’d let Thor live. Only way to save him_.

 

 _Thor had his powers back. Heimdall could still win free. Everything was falling apart. There wasn’t time; to end the war, I had to stop Thor, and I couldn’t stop him any other way_.

 

 _I never expected to wake up again. But I lie there, my lungs on fire, my back screaming, my brother gone, and… I realize that even death has rejected me_.

 _So I limp back to Asgard, thinking that I can cut ties cleanly before I leave for good. Because if Odin cares nothing for my death, if I see that much, then maybe it’ll finally kill the part of me that still yearns for his approval_.

 

 _He’s a frog, and he can still lift Mjolnir, it’s crazy. Gave me a good pounding. Only time I ever turned anyone else into an animal… though I thought about it, now and then_.

 

 _I tried telling Odin, countless times, but he wouldn’t listen. In retrospect, I don’t think he had much choice—the Odinsleep was upon him, and there really was no time to wait for Thor to grow up_.

 _But it would have been a disaster. I was right about him, you know. For all his oaths to defend Asgard and preserve the peace, Thor literally started a war because somebody called him a girl_.

 

 _The Other could use my ears, my eyes, could reach in and torture me from afar. Thor begs me to come home, and I… I can’t. I can’t even tell him why_.

 

 _Four thousand years in that cell. Unthinkable. My mind was already fractured, and… it wouldn’t have taken ten years to break it to pieces. The only reason I didn’t kill myself in the first week was Mother_.

_Sometimes I wished… I wished that she hated me, because she would never have talked Odin into such a thoughtless ‘mercy.’_

 

 _It’s different from a glamour. Glamours affect the senses, and it’s easy to wrap myself in an illusion; I can mimic anyone, make people see and hear anything I like_.

 _But shapeshifting… I can change into a snake, but not just any snake; it’s a snake version of me. I can become female, but I’ll be a female me. I’ve turned into a wolf, a mare, a cat, lots of different birds, even some sea creatures, but each one is… it’s all me, different forms of me_.

_And it was easier when I was younger, before my form was quite so fixed. I haven’t shifted in… oh, four or five centuries?_

_Given my injuries, I don’t think it would be wise to even try_.

 

 _By now, of course, he’s grown past all of the fears that I held. Back then… enough of them, I suppose. Certainly, under the circumstances, he’d be a better king than Odin_.

 _And then I have to reconsider my impression of his maturity, because he says that he’d rather not shoulder that burden, and just go on adventuring instead_.

 _I wasn’t sure whether to hate him or thank him. But I had to adjust myself to holding the throne, perhaps indefinitely_.

 

 _Almost like a dream… reaching for that button… knowing it could kill him, but… I knew he could break free, he could break the glass, and… I had to show the Other that I would stop at nothing to win_.

 

 _If I let him go, he’s going to die. Even when he had Mjolnir, he couldn’t beat her, and now she’s drawing power from Asgard itself. It’s a suicide mission, and Thor isn’t the type to give up_.

 _The only way to stop him is to betray him, and then talk the Grandmaster into letting him live_.

 

 _I couldn’t even risk going to the healers; they’d know I wasn’t Odin_.

 _The wound in my chest never did heal up clean_.

 

 _But at least they’ll meet in Valhalla! And Valhalla isn’t a place for monsters like me. I… I’ll never see Mother again, and he… he won’t even tell me if she suffered_.

 _They didn’t even let me attend the funeral. I’m surprised they even thought to let me know that she died_.

 

 _I killed him, but I was always living in his shadow, knowing that I was his offspring, that I would always be the monster. I’d grown up a serpent in the bosom of Asgard, and it was only a matter of time before I poisoned them all_.

 

 _Then I realize that he’s just as suicidal as I was, trying to reach Frigga that much sooner. Dragging Asgard down to ruin at his side, and Thor’s right in the path of its destruction_.

 _And I… I’ve never felt rage like I felt it that day. I wouldn’t let him have that out. I wouldn’t let him do that to Thor, or to the home that, despite everything else, I still love_.

 _And the rage fuels my magic, enough to overcome him, in that moment of weakness; to cage his powers and his memories and leave him helpless before me, and… only then do I stop to think about Asgard without Odin, but it’s too late to do anything but step into his place_.

 

 _Two and a half weeks, I thought he was dead. I was… alone. Forever. They’d all gone to Valhalla, and I, the eternal outcast, had to soldier on_.

 _With no one left to care about me, and nowhere else to run to, I make my home there, bluffing my way into the good life by placating a madman, losing myself in the drugs and the pleasures of the flesh, trying to reinvent myself and forget how I’ve lost everything that ever mattered to me_.

 _And then Thor gets there, and he comes to the conclusion that Sakaar is the right place for me. Which he tells me while we’re supposedly escaping—while he’s trying to fly off to his death and I’m trying to concoct a plan on the fly that keeps him alive, even though I know he’s going to hate me for it_.

 _‘Maybe there’s still good in you.’ He said that too, you know. Two minutes before he humiliates me and laughs about it. Five minutes before he leaves me writhing in pain for what could have been hours_.

 _When the refugees find me, I direct them toward Asgard, ready to die at Thor’s side because I can no longer imagine wandering a universe without him in it. But_ …

 _‘Maybe there’s still good in you.’ And he thought that I’d finally found a place where I belong_.

 _I felt less alone when I thought he was dead than I did standing there at his side_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Content Warnings:** Coping with new disabilities; neck trauma, intense pain.
> 
> Memory issues: Due to his psychotic break, his torments under Thanos and the Chitauri, and a year's isolation in the dungeons, Loki is having trouble sorting fantasy from reality, placing his memories in the right part of his life, and correctly interpreting the facts. Discussion of madness, attempted suicide / suicidal ideation (more than just the canon detail of Loki letting go).
> 
> Nightmares that include people dying, and mercy killing.
> 
> Flashbacks, mostly vague, that refer to canon details and details from the Norse mythos. This includes Loki's chest wound from TDW, acid in his eyes, and his lips sewn shut (mention of blood, choking).
> 
> Despairing talk of afterlife: Loki is convinced that while his family will all see each other in Valhalla, he has no place there and will never see them again.


End file.
